A seat device known as a walk-in vehicle seat is configured so that the entire seat moves forward in conjunction with an operation of folding the seatback of the vehicle seat forward (tilting the seat forward). This type of seat has been used in the past as a front seat for a two-door vehicle that does not have an entrance for rear seat passengers, but recently this seat has also come to be widely used in minivans and the like.
This type of walk-in seat has the following configuration and operation, as is disclosed in Patent Document 1, for example. The vehicle seat has a slide rail mechanism for supporting the entire vehicle seat in a manner that allows the seat to slide forwards and backwards. The slide rail mechanism has a lower rail fixed in place in the vehicle, an upper rail that slides with the vehicle seat, a locking plate for fixing the vehicle seat at an arbitrary sliding position, and a release lever for releasing the seat from being fixed by the locking plate. The seatback of the vehicle seat has a reclining plate that rotates as a result of an operation for reclining the seat forward past a specific angle. The release lever and the reclining plate are coupled using a rod. When the seatback is reclined forward past a specific angle, the movement of the rotating reclining plate is transmitted to the release lever through the rod, and the slide rail mechanism is released from being fixed. The vehicle seat is urged forward and the fixing is released, whereby the seat moves forward. Patent Document 2 discloses a coupling mechanism that uses a double-tube cable composed of a cable and an outer cable and based on the same principle as a rod.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2000-190760 (see paras. 7-10, 23, FIGS. 3-5, 9)
Patent Document 2: Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2003-291703 (see FIGS. 1-3, 6)